.......................................FORN SIÐR URÞANK..........................................
..........................Deep Thought about the Old Ways...................................
I am Siegfried Goodfellow, author of "Wyrd Megin Thew : The Wild, Wooly Strength of Heathen Ways". Heathenry is a fantastic contribution to a renewed spiritual culture. Ur-Thanc is thought/thank-fulness bubbling up from the primordial depths. All Material Copyright Siegfried Goodfellow.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Mission : To Put A Stop to Torture and Atrocity in This World

If there are no solutions to the problems of atrocities and traumas, I see no reason to worship Gods at all, nor to do anything but declare that we live in a savage, Jotunn-dominated existence. There is, of course, the Gnostic way of approaching heathen theology, which I actually think is a genuine heathen theology, and that is to posit that in particular ages, the world is dominated by savage Jotnar forces. The Gods are there as forces to inspire our minds and our hearts to evolution so we may use our wits to outwit those forces which would set us in division, violence, atrocity, and trauma.

To me, there would seem to be no point in being alive at all if we cannot grapple with and come closer to solutions to the most basic problems of atrocities, rapes, tortures, abuse of children, preventable famine, the evil that human beings do to other human beings. I really can't see the point of enjoying anything or living in denial if we can't dedicate some portion of this time that we are alive to using the intelligence that we were given by the Gods to try to come up with some way of eliminating this from the planet. Without it, I hardly see the point of even being here at all, because otherwise all life amounts to is living in a torture camp and doing the best we can to look aside and get what pleasures we can get in that context, and that is the approach of a slavish mentality, not of a warrior who would fight against that which must be fought against.

Warriors that have become so grizzled by warfare that they conclude that these things are not possible to solve are like teachers who have become burnt-out : they need to retire, and lick their wounds, and receive whatever honor and compassion is due to them for their merits.

I should like most people to be deeply troubled by the prevalence of atrocity and the history of torture, rape, and abuse on this planet. I should like people to be less than despicably cowardly than to suggest that all of this is "natural" simply because it is so prevalent, and yes, I am calling those who lay out this contemptuously easy solution as despicably cowardly. I believe, and the sources support me, that there is a review of one's life by the Gods, and every single one of us is going to have to explain what we did or didn't do to address these most basic issues. It's not as if we have to take the troubles of the entire world on our shoulders, but then again, the question of "Why didn't you do anything with your intelligence or strength to address these issues?" might be a rather condemning statement in open court, and the excuse that "I just took all this as inevitable" might be seen as a rather laughable excuse worthy of ridicule.

The issue is not whether others in the past or others in the present take such things for granted. The issue is whether you, right now, with your intelligence, and with your empathy, can stand for a planet to have such characteristics, and if you cannot, then to use your intelligence, your empathy, your valor, and your strength, to strategize how one might push out the Jotnar forces. Let's not mince words : that's exactly the kinds of forces they are. In Book Five of Saxo Grammaticus' History of the Danes, the childhood of Freyr as King Frodi is described, as he sits on his throne in Alfheim, and giants, described there as berzerkers of immense stature, come in and torture, rape, and abuse men, women, and children. Those behaviors are explicitly connected with the Jotnar, brought in by them, and King Frodi, when he is triumphant over them, specifically enacts laws to prevent such things from happening. We here have an example from the God of Freedom himself of exactly what our imperatives must be, and we know therefore precisely where the Gods stand in this matter, and they stand against these atrocities, and any evidence to the contrary is the result of warped minds who have been degraded and perverted by Jotnar energies.

We cannot take such things for granted. We must challenge them with all of our might, wit, and will. The Gods do not condone these, for they cannot, as Gods cannot be good if they cannot even condemn what a good human being would! Other peoples may be content to worship Jotnar and call them their "gods", but as for us, Gods and Goods are connected. We worship those beings in the world who bring about collective good, not those who tend towards tearing up the world and the bringing about of mass pain and degradation. Even disruption and fighting must always be for a creative purpose, an evolutionary purpose. If we do not accept the good gifts the Gods have given us, such as law, such as the capacity for mercy, such as intelligence and planning, including family planning, such as inventory of resources relative to need, such as redistribution customs, and instead take up, exhibit, and multiply gifts given by Jotnar and their children, such as the charging of interest, such as greed, such as the spreading of fear and anxiety, such as deceit and fraud, such as coveting what other people have, such as wolfishness in war, such as trying to strangle out the life in others out of envy, such as allowing famine and the disease it brings to have sway in our kingdoms, then it is clear who we worship, in Gnostic terms : the Gods of Empire, the Jotnar forces. Indeed, we have invited in and contracted with, through acquiescence to terms that no free men would ever acquiesce to. Whenever we consent to immoderate, out-of-control destructiveness, we are sending the Gods a signed letter under penalty of perjury that we are worth-shipping their enemies, and that might very well be taken as a statement of treason.

It is true that the Christians have been too dualistic in emphasizing a black-and-white separation of good and evil, and that heathenism is much more moderate, opening up the grey areas, and recognizing that there are many ways of being good in the world, but heathenism has always been realistic about evil in the world. In accord with Voluspa, as the ages of degenerated, evil has grown considerably, and it must be faced square on. With great power comes great responsibility, and one might say, liability. The same is true of great privilege and progress. So again, while we are not responsible for the entirety of the world, it must be asked in this lifetime allotted to us, what are we doing to address it at all? Are we opening up the dialogue in how we may at least create even a small kingdom free of such ills, where such things are not "unthinkable", but rather quite thought out, and forbidden, and bound up in such a way that they cannot come back to haunt men until the end of days, when they shall be finally cleansed from the earth. What kind of legal and moral bonds are we putting on these things to control them, and keep them from raging out of control? These are the questions we must ask ourselves : the questions on which hinge a meaningful life.

War is outrage and unowned aggression externalized, oppression turned outward. Therefore, Tyr is the answer to lessening externalization of warfare, by acknowledging our anger in life by standing up for ourselves, refusing to be oppressed by anyone around us, by being true to our anger in the moment, rather than letting it store up. Because it is when we let it store up in savings accounts in banks with interest that it can be dislodged upon others with such ferocity and with such inhumanity, because it is the inhumane storing up of undischarged resentment and anger about life that gets transformed into the capacity to do hateful things to an enemy in wartime. Thus it is our duty to Tyr to stay close to our anger, to not allow it to be repressed, to stay with it and to moderate it, and to create arenas where it can be expressed without destroying the community, either external or internal. It means staying tough with those around us, not tolerating any arrogance or bullshit, and not giving way to any kind of disrespectful behavior or aggression upon us that violates us. Doing so consistently and firmly, with a sense of standing upon our rights that does not make us desperate and want to lash out, but rather strong and entrenched.

It also means not tolerating Lokis in our own midst, traitors who dress themselves up in patriotism and try to scare us with forebodings of terrorism, snarling in their constipated angst about the supposed "need" for torture camps to "protect" us. If we let such an enemy have sway even within our own borders, it shall surely eat us up alive, and our refusal to live up to our principles, because we have given in to someone else's cynical realism and machiavellian realpolitik, will be our own undoing. As a nation we have tolerated those Greps who have tortured and raped men, women, and children, making Frodi weep, and have refused to bring them to justice where they may be tried for high treason. When Frodi returns as Robin Hood, the folk shall have their justice, for atrocity is not to be tolerated in any form for any reason. Not while the Gods are on watch.